


The Study Session

by sam_fiction



Category: Free!, Free! Eternal Summer - Fandom, Free! Iwatobi Swim Club - Fandom
Genre: Anime, Bullying, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Slurs, Swearing, reigisa - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-17
Updated: 2015-05-17
Packaged: 2018-03-30 22:56:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3955042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sam_fiction/pseuds/sam_fiction
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rei and Nagisa are studying for a test when Rei falls asleep. Nagisa uses the opportunity to snoop around Rei's room, and he discovers more than he bargained for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Study Session

Nagisa sat crossed legged on the other side of the coffee table, a bowl of strawberries in his lap. Rei-chan had been trying to get him to switch from the protein powder to the fruit for a while now for his health, but he had refused. Seeing him like this, though, it was hard not to try to make him happy.

Rei-chan’s arms were crossed on top of the coffee table, supporting his snoozing head. His floppy, blue-tinted hair spilled over onto a pile of books near his right hand side. Ruby red glasses framed his closed violet eyes and their long black eyelashes, and they gleamed in the lamplight of the study area. 

Nagisa smiled subconsciously; he loved seeing Rei-chan like this. Sleeping, that is. He always looked so relaxed when his eyes were closed. Maybe that calm Rei-chan was always inside of him somewhere, but Nagisa had never seen it during his waking hours. 

Throwing his blonde hair back with a clip, Nagisa balled up his fists and rubbed at his eyes. He wished that he could sleep too, that he could sit next to Rei-chan with his arms under his head and his chin tilted exactly the same way. He wanted to breathe slowly, in and out, so that Rei-chan would match his breath and stay asleep. But he also didn’t want to scare him, push too much too fast, and so he never did what he really wanted to do.

Instead, whenever he was in Rei-chan’s house, Nagisa snooped. He opened every drawer, searched under all the furniture, looked into each crevice that he could find. And he wanted to feel bad about it, especially because Rei-chan had no idea, but he really didn’t, no matter how hard he tried. He just couldn’t help wanting to know more about Rei-chan than Rei-chan knew about him. If Rei-chan knew about his past…well, Nagisa didn’t know what he would think. And so he kept Rei-chan in the dark and himself in the light.

The carpet of the room tickled his bare feet and muffled the sound of his steps as he moved away from the coffee table toward Rei-chan’s bed. He crawled up onto the fabric of the covers and inched his way to the bookcase that was pressed tight against the wall, then raised himself up slowly onto his feet, searching for a good find. Unsure what to grab first, he ran his hands along the bindings of the books, and struck one that was sticking out more than the others. It was thin, which was good—he was done with textbooks for tonight. He wiggled the spine and drew the book out of its prison: a yearbook from grade school.

In his eagerness, his tiny hands pried open the binding, making an unexpected sticky crackling sound. He held his breath and waited for Rei-chan to stir; Rei-chan was always ready to wake up at a moment’s notice. A gasping snort sound emanated from the other side of the room, but after a brief pause, the breathing returned to normal. Probably just his sleep apnea.

Turning back to the book, Nagisa flipped greedily through the glossy pages with one goal in mind. And inside the yearbook, tucked about halfway through the pages, was Rei-chan’s picture. At least, where his picture was supposed to be. Instead of his portrait, Nagisa stared at a blank space where a rectangle had been cut out with an X-Acto knife. His eyebrows crunched down and he flipped through the rest of the pages. No one else’s picture was like that. Everyone else, with their subpar faces and underwhelming hair, was in the right place. But not Rei-chan.

In a fit of frustration, Nagisa gripped the cover flaps and shook the book vigorously, hoping the snippet would fall out onto the bed. Nothing. No amount of wobbling would make the picture come out. His cheeks flushed pink; he had really wanted to see what Rei-chan used to look like. After all, Rei-chan had seen that old swim club picture of him a million times.

Exasperated, Nagisa flung himself back on the bed with a creak and turned his head toward the book. He closed one eye, then the other, his vision flipping back and forth between the two. After the fifth time doing it, he noticed—there were some scribbles on the inside cover of the yearbook. His chest fluttered and in an instant he found himself upright, pushing the pages down to get a closer look at the words, his heart yearning for Rei-chan’s secrets.

As he read the words, the substance of his body emptied out through his nose, the whooshing sound hanging in the air of the room.

“H.A.G.S. FAGGOT. Hope you spend your summer sucking cock like the bitch you are.”

“You’re an autistic piece of shit. Stay away from me and my brother.”

“You think you’re so fucking smart? That you’re better than me? Well, I heard you have to take special ed classes, so who’s the idiot now?”

“Even the teachers hate you, you know.”

“Stop being such a smartass or I’ll beat you out of high school.”

Nagisa’s throat caught and tears welled in the corners of his eyes, burning. He tried to wipe them away before they came, just in case Rei-chan woke up and found him like this. He didn’t want him to know that he knew. And he definitely didn’t want to make him cry too. He had to undo this.

With gentleness, Nagisa turned around on the bed and scooted forward on his knees, reaching toward the top shelf of the bookcase. Getting tentatively to his feet, swaying under the give of the mattress, he wedged the yearbook in between a skinny chemistry textbook and a manila folder with a single piece of paper inside. His hand lingered on the folder, curious about the contents, but he just couldn’t open it, not after what he had found. Then, looking down, he realized his knees had bunched up the covers of the bed far beyond what was quietly fixable, and he let out a small, surprised, “Oh!”

“Nagisa-kun?” Rei called out, panicked. “Nagisa-kun? Where are you!?”

Nagisa collected himself before answering, swallowing down the dryness in his throat. “On your bed.”

“What? Why? You’re supposed to be studying for a test on Monday.”

“Ahhh,” Nagisa rubbed the back of his neck, searching for an excuse. “…I was feeling really sleepy and so I thought maybe I could rest in your bed, Rei-chan?”

“Eh?” Rei started. His right eyebrow drew upward. “Hmmm, well normally only I sleep in my own bed. After all, it is optimized to my exact height and weight and my firmness preferences. Plus, its pattern is of my own choosing and I picked the sheets to match my inclination toward cooler temperatures…” His hair bounced slightly with each new consideration, and his eyes went everywhere but Nagisa’s face.

“It’s okay, I can just go home-”

“But! I am willing to make an exception. Because of my laziness, it is now too dark for you to go home by yourself. Additionally, everything I’ve read in my hospitality books suggests that it is my duty as a host to make my guest as comfortable as possible. Thus! I am willing to let you sleep in my bed for the night while I sleep on the floor.” Rei grinned, confident that he had made the right choice. When Nagisa fell silent, Rei’s face dropped.

“Was that wrong? We don’t have to do that if you want something else.”

“Rei-chaaan!” Nagisa squealed suddenly, launching from the bed and wrapping his arms around Rei. “You’re the best!” He buried his head where Rei’s shoulder met the base of his neck and giggled. Rei stiffened.

“Yes, I am indeed the best. But why aren’t you sleeping? You said you were tired.”

“Gimme a second. I need pajamas first.”

“Fine.”

Rei began pulling sheets out of a nearby cabinet, piling them on the floor to create a makeshift bed. Nagisa pattered out of the room into the hallway where his bag lay on the front bench. He ripped open the zipper despite Rei’s shushing and then dropped his pants on the floor, stepping out of them into a pair of shiny silk boxers.

As he pulled them up, he pointed to the rock hopper penguin pattern and asked, “Do you like them, Rei-chan?”

“They are… cute.” Rei went back to arranging his pillow.

“I know, right?” Nagisa ran back into the bedroom, swinging the door shut behind him and leaping into bed with a squeak.

“Nagisa, I have to ask you to be quiet. You’re going to wake my brother up.”

“Okay.”

“Thank you. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight!” 

…

…

…

“Rei-chan?”

Rei breathed out hard. “What is it, Nagisa?”

“Why don’t you have any stuffed animals?”

“What?”

“I can’t go to sleep without a stuffed animal.”

“For goodness sake, Nagisa-kun-”

“Reiiiiiii-chaaaaaan, I’m tiiiiiired!”

To prevent any further unwanted noise, Rei marched across the room, flung open the closet door, plummeted his hand into a basket, and clenched something soft in his hand. Striding back to the bed, he thrust it at Nagisa.

“Here. Now go to bed.”

Nagisa took the object into his fingers and held it above his head with outstretched arms. Two glassy black eyes and a smile looked down at him. They were set in the body of a plush penguin with a pink beak and a white belly. He turned to ask Rei a question, but he was already gone.

Nagisa heard the clink of the glasses against the table, the shuffle of Rei’s body into the sheets on the floor, and the tense sigh he made as he tried to will himself to sleep for the third time that night. His joints popped as he shifted on the floor, flipping on one side of his body, then the other, then his stomach. He struggled for forty minutes before finally going still and settling into light, somewhat steady breathing. Nagisa listened to the entire thing, his chest heavy, sinking downward into the bed.

For the first time, Nagisa began to worry. Tonight was too close—what if Rei-chan found out how manipulative he was? Would he agree to see him again? Would he quit the swim team? Nagisa couldn’t consider that. Instead, he hugged the plush close to his chest and drifted off, all the while willing Rei-chan into a state of deep slumber.

**Author's Note:**

> If you would like to read more of this storyline, leave me a comment! Otherwise, I will be moving on to other scenarios.


End file.
